Before The Storm (Ch. 04)

Chapter Four

Sketch found himself still trying to adapt to sleeping with other bodies next to his when he crawled out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, having to extract himself from Serena and Aliara's limbs, something he found he was still rather adept at doing.

In his younger days, he'd been quite the ladies man, as well as quite the drinker, and so while he wasn't proud of it, he'd had more than a few mornings where he'd woken up in a strange bed with a stranger woman (or women) and had needed to sneak out as quietly as possible. Despite not having used those skills in several years, he found they had come back to him naturally, and he'd been able to escape from their cocoon of arms and legs without too much fuss, and without waking either of them.

When he needed to think, he liked to simply walk the halls of the ship, as if the chance to have his feet beneath him helped clear his mind. He'd had plenty of time to do that over the past few years, so he knew most of the ship pretty well at this point, although when he found himself nearing the hangar, he knew he needed to step in and take a look at the Y'bari dart resting in their hangar bay.

The long sleek slender black dagger of a ship didn't take up a lot of space in their hangar bay, since The Praeteritus could hold several small fighters. Sketch had considered using it as hauling space, but there weren't easy places to strap things down in here other than ships. There wasn't much remarkable about The Barrow other than how immaculate shape it was in. Fighter ships used for deep path patrol and escort work tended to take a lot of micro damage, traveling through space without heavily used pathways, and so they often had pockmark scarring on their surfaces. Other than a few minor blemishes that looked fresh enough that they had to have been gained on the ship's way to meet up with The Praeteritus and Aliara hadn't had a chance to fix them yet. That meant she tended to this ship like she didn't have anything else. Maybe she didn't.

With so little known about the Y'bari, Sketch felt like he was just making educated guesses, based on what little information he could glean from the various accidental bits of information the Starless Dominion had accidentally let slip through. Their culture, their weapons, their tactics, all of it was the kind of thing they kept mostly confidential.

But here was a Y'bari battle dart he could just peel apart if he wanted. Of course, that would bring a bigger Y'bari cruiser the minute he cracked the hull, so he decided to just do a visual inspection. The weapons were internal, hidden beneath paneling and folds, so he could only look at the external engines, and the tech was epochs beyond his understanding.

Even when he'd been a career troubleshooter, the tech aspect had never really been his focus, so he specialized with weapons systems, and even then just in the weapons he was typically working with at that moment in time.

Helen had done what she could to scan the ship, but the outer layer of the Y'bari vessel was covered in some sort of stealth coating that made it impenetrable to her sensors. She'd informed Sketch that once Aliara had removed some of the plates, at least temporarily, she would have a much better understanding of the vessel, but Sketch had replied that they would take it one step at a time.

After leaving the hangar, he headed into the library to read up a little about the Monarch Purge. Before his slumber, the Four Great Houses had the default political system, and while it hadn't affected his day-to-day life much at the time, he'd still had to be aware of it. He wished Serena had simply added the royal archives to Helen's already exhaustive database, but without it, he was limited to what information they'd picked up along the way over the last several years.

He'd only been out of the ice for about a year when the Monarch Purge had happened, and it had been given such little news that he'd assumed the combined Royal House had become something of a vestigial legacy under the control of the Starless Dominion. The reports were that the Royals had been discovered to be plotting against the benevolent rule of the Dominion, and as such, were executed as traitors, with no Royals said to survive.

As much as he tried to dig, he couldn't find any real information beyond the propaganda, so he resolved to look up all of it later when he had time that included access to Serena's archives. He also didn't want to look up any information about his late friend, because that kind of query into the Dominion's databases would definitely draw up some red flags.

They would be at Relling Gate in a few days at their current pace, so he decided they would need a day or two to stop somewhere along the way and think, to figure out how they were going to move forward with all of this. A quick glance through the nearby planets found a planet in the midst of terraforming called Wystoria that was basically abandoned, just one completely automated terraforming machine running near the magnetic northern pole. Wystoria was an ocean world, although despite the surface being completely covered in H2O, there wasn't any natural life on it. The machine in the north was set to be drilling down to stimulate the molten core, to cause a number of volcanoes to spring forth and build land masses on the surface, but it was still several months away from bearing fruit, meaning it was nothing but endless empty water in all directions. A perfect little place to stop and take a breather, Sketch thought to himself, as he ordered Helen to descend down through the atmosphere, which he was pleased to find was already breathable.

One of the things he'd found out about The Praeteritus early on, which he'd come to love, was that she could be put down just about anywhere without too much of a fuss, with a variety of ways to land, vertical if the target zone was narrow, horizontal if there was plenty of space to stretch out. The ship even had enough buoyancy that it could be laid down flat in any large body of water and it would stay atop like an old Earthen boat. That last was what he was going to do on Wystoria.

While there was a small amount of shimmy and shake going on internally when The Praeteritus burst through the atmosphere, the internal inertia dampeners and stabilizers kept most of the ship from even shaking so much as an inch or two. He wondered if Serena and Aliara had even woken up as he laid the ship down in the middle of a calm patch of the ocean, the waves small and not overly disruptive. Then he went to do something he rarely got to do, sit on the outside of his ship.

He headed to the top hatch, letting Helen open it for him, as he stepped out into fresh atmosphere. Helen was recharging the solar cells and filling the oxygen tanks with the local atmosphere while he moved to sit down on top The Praeteritus's red metal hull, looking towards the horizon, having picked a spot where he was able to look and see the strange thin pink clouds just slightly obscuring the descent of the three suns, one large, one medium and one small, the trinary star at the heart of the system bidding farewell to this side of the planet in a short while.

Sunsets were such a glorious thing, he made it a point to see one at least once a month whenever he was able, often more. He knew the science behind it, but it evoked such a sense of awe and wonder, that sense of respect for the power of the universe and all its majesty.

"Helen said I'd find you up here," Aliara said to him as she climbed up and onto the deck. She was dressed in loose fitting pants and a rather fetching tight white tank top that was sheer enough that he could see the outline of her nipples through it. "Serena's still sleeping, so I thought maybe you and I should have a talk before she woke up and joined us. How are you feeling?"

"I should be the one asking you that," he chuckled. "Hopefully your bioshaping wasn't too painful? I've never known a species to do that."

"Yes, well, the Y'bari aren't entirely a natural species," she said, looking down at her hands as she moved to sit down beside him. "The Starless Dominion has been tinkering with our genetic code for eons. We don't know our home planet, we don't know what we were like before the Dominion found us - our history, our past, all of it is from before the Dominion arrived is gone. The physiological adaptation process was something the Dominion built into our species long ago, but the level of bonding and devotion to anyone other than the Dominion is a relatively new development. When they conquered your people, they went digging through your entire well of history, searching for anything they could use, because no part of a conquered species should go unapplied. They discovered in the forgotten annuls of your species knowledge repositories a formula that was once used to treat a great plague millennium ago, before your race had done more than dip its collective toe into the wide black. And they adapted it and used it to bond the select few of us that were chosen to be specific protectorate services. We keep one pill of it in our pill kit, in case we're assigned to be a guardian for someone specific. It's rarely used, but when it is, our devotion to our protectee is unquestioning. That's why the Y'bari who were bonded to human royals died attempting to keep them safe, even though the orders had come from above. So yeah, if it comes between you or the Dominion now, I'm always going to choose you. Or Serena."

"I can imagine you have some mixed feelings about that."

"Why would you think that?" she said, curiously. "Just because I'm Y'bari doesn't mean I'm blind to the attitudes and approaches the Starless Dominion have been using my entire lifetime. But I couldn't exactly just leave, now, could I?"

"How long are you bonded to us?"

"For life," she said. "So unless I die, or the two of you do, we're together forever, which, I have to admit, doesn't seem all that bad."

"Aren't your commanding officers going to come looking for you?"

"That's what I was going to talk to you about, actually," she said. "We need to fake my death. It won't be all that difficult, really. I can just strip out the transponder, strap a radio beacon into it, then use a rocket to fly it into one of the exposed volcanoes on this planet."

"Aren't we taking a risk by keeping your dart?"

She sighed, nodding. "We are, but I'd like to request that we do it anyway. I can think of how useful it would be to have a Y'bari battle dart at The Praeteritus's disposal. I know you have a couple of shuttles, but my weaponry could be quite useful now and then. Her natural shielding will keep her from being detected by ring gate scanners, so all we would need would be a tarp of some kind any time the hangar was exposed. Since you're a Storm, I'm guessing you've been making a living as a smuggler?"

Sketch chuckled, bouncing his eyes a little. "I prefer 'subtle cargo relocater' but yeah, smuggler's about right. Before I was a Storm, I was a mercenary, so I learned a lot about how smugglers worked, because we needed to transport weapons and prisoners discretely. Anything I can take the time to learn, I do so, the hard way. So when I came out of the deep freeze, I had a lot of tech to get caught up on, especially with all the shit the Dominion brought in, but the old smuggler tactics still held up pretty well. I started investigating fences and found someone to rep me for jobs who was willing to put up with my... eccentricities... and I've been laying low ever since. Although my Lingham spores excuse won't be holding up anymore, so we'll need to find a new way to discourage people from coming onto the ship. Speaking of which, are we going to need to worry about your presence raising any red flags anywhere we go?"

"I'm going to have Helen do some minor cosmetic surgery to my face - nothing too severe, but adding a few tribal tattoos over one of my eyes and along my cheek, as well as making a slight tweak to my nose. It'll make me look like a P'nox, the wild offshoot of the Y'bari who are allowed to run free, considered too genetically aberrant to be allowed to join the Y'bari military forces. Usually P'nox are left to die out in desolate areas, but some have survived, and they have formed a few colonies scattered across the stars," she said. "Assuming that's okay with you and Serena. If you would be bothered by physical changes, we can try another solution."

"Are you comfortable with it, Aliara?"

She tiled her head to look at him, a strange expression on her face. "I... I don't understand the question, sir."

He raised a hand up and sighed. "Not sir. Sketch or Miles, Captain if you must, but you don't have to call me sir."

"But... I'm bound to you."

"And I appreciate that. But The Praeteritus is a freehold ship, and everyone who serves aboard her does so at their own discretion. In the heat of battle, I'm calling the shots, but any time we can stop and have a discussion about things, majority vote wins."

"You mean if I can convince Aliara to agree with me," Serena said, moving up out of the hatch, "then we can outvote you?" She was wearing another of his shirts like a dress, the bottom edge of it hanging almost to her knees. He wasn't entirely certain she had anything on underneath it.

"Well, Helen gets a vote too, and if it's a tie, the Captain's vote breaks the tie," he said with a chuckle. "It seems like the Starless Dominion feels differently, but I think AI are entitled to the same rights as any other intelligence. I had to override Helen's compulsive need to ask me to constantly reset her, but other than that slight modification, she's entirely grown into her own person."

"But what he's saying, Aliara, is that he wants you to make up your own mind on things. I know you're used to being a soldier, following orders and never worrying about the consequences, but it's clear that hasn't been working out for you, so maybe it's time to try something new, don't you think?"

"I... I guess so," she sighed as Serena settled down on the other side of Sketch, the two of them flanking him as the three of them slowly watched the sun descend beneath the horizon.

After the sunset, the trio climbed back into The Praeteritus and headed up for orbit. Once they had a stable position, they headed down to the hangar bay and removed a torpedo from The Barrow, as well as the ship's transponder. Helen reprogrammed the transponder data so that it would send prerecorded data streams showing The Barrow had encountered catastrophic engine failure and was falling into a volcano right up until the moment the torpedo dropped into the lava, and within moments, the signal would die and the Y'bari carrier ship would write off Centurion Aliara as a casualty of mechanical failure. They set the torpedo to engage just as The Praeteritus was on the edge of sensor range, so they could follow the signal and make sure the torpedo didn't malfunction. Just as planned, the device sent the signal and then flung itself into the volcano.

Aliara was dead; long live Aliara.

Over lunch, they discussed their next plan of action, and Serena was quite excited when it came to her turn to suggest where they headed. "I think we need to swing by Jamolti, the second planet in the Dally System, just off of the Fenth Gate," Serena said to them, tapping a part of the holographic systems map floating in front of them.

"Jamolti's a graveyard planet, Serena," Aliara said. "I'm not sure what you're expecting to find there, unless you're suggesting we go grave robbing."

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting we do."

"Which part of 'low profile' do you think that falls under?" Sketch asked, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "We'd be calling all sorts of attention to ourselves."

"Look, I know how to bypass their basic security, and we're not going to be there all that long, and we're not going to take all that much," Serena said. "So I think as long as we're careful and don't let Sketch interact with other people too much, we should be fine. I don't think that'll be a problem anyway, considering there aren't even guards watching over the human royalty chambers any more. The Y'bari guards were called back after the royals were killed off, and nobody really pays much attention to the human sector over there anyway, since it's not all that big. But we can find what you're looking for there, Sketch."

"Wait, what?"

"I think there's an Ashaka buried there, along with someone from your order. It wouldn't be listed, so nobody would even know we took it."

"I sense a down side here, Serena."

The princess frowned for a moment, looking away before looking back up at him. "There's a good chance that the Starless Empire would learn I survived if we do this."

"What? No!" Sketch said, throwing his hands up in the air. "That's not just foolish; that's insane! The fact that you're off their radar is the only thing keeping you safe right now in the first place!"

"Okay, maybe good chance is a bit stronger than I meant, but there's a chance, okay? But you need to be able to walk among the world again, and we can't pretend that we're ever going to be able to do that without you ever getting your Ashaka back! They aren't big, they're easy to conceal, and they'll let us start interacting with people again, which will raise our exposure a little, but will lower people's suspicions of us a thousand times!" She was pacing around the room as she spoke, like she was presenting a case before a courtroom. "And as much as I love the sort of low-frequency sexual hum I feel around you all the time, I could also use a fucking break from it now and then! I'm the one who would be at risk, and I'm willing to take that risk!"

Sketch stood up and moved over to her, taking her hand in his own. "You're not the only one at risk anymore, Serena. We're a crew now, which means we all look after one another. If you think the risk is important enough to take, we can put it to a vote."

"I say we go," Aliara immediately said. "You may not recognize it, Storm Walker, but you've been removed from social contact so long that your personal skills have atrophied some. Not unforgivably so, but little small nonverbal cues have began to escape you, and we need you to be at your sharpest. And you both need me at my best. I can't be that if I constantly feel like I want to bend over and present my cunt for your taking, which I very much do right now."

"That's two in favor of us going," Serena said. "Helen?"

"Captain?" Helen's voice said, perhaps with a slight undercurrent of nervousness.

"No no, Helen," he said. "This is your call and your call alone."

The air was silent for a moment before Sketch felt the ships positional thrusters burst for a moment, as the ship began to turn. "Setting course for Nymar Gate, which will take us to Fenth Gate after three jumps. We should arrive at Jamolti within three days' time."

"Good, now that that's settled, you can fuck my brains out," Aliara said, peeling the tank top over her head, exposing her stiff as rocks sky-blue nipples. "Because I'm hoping it clears my fucking head. It has been so fucking difficult being this near to you, smelling you, and not having been properly sated yet."

"Well, I-"

"It's not your fault, Sketch," Aliara said, lowering herself down onto her knees. "I'm genuinely looking forward to it. The sensations I felt when I swallowed your seed... it was alien and foreign to me in a way I can't quite comprehend." She bent forward and laid her arms down on the floor of the ship before placing her head atop of them. "But I'm ready now. Ready to be fucked and to feel what's worth walking away from an empire for." She reached behind her and pulled her pants down to her knees, exposing her newly reshaped pussy. True to Serena's word, it had contracted and shrunk over the night, biomorphing so that it would match with his own cock in size. The contrast of her smaller snatch against her powerful thighs looked a little unusual, out of scale with the rest of her body, but only in minor measures, and not in any way unappealing. "Well? Are you waiting for an invitation?"